


Songs to Sing Your Daughter

by seraphcelene



Series: This Is Growing Up [2]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-29
Updated: 2009-09-29
Packaged: 2019-10-04 16:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17307857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphcelene/pseuds/seraphcelene
Summary: Some days, it's Monday and it rains and you lay in bed and cry and read poems. And that's okay. It might even be beautiful. Post-Deathly Hollows. Companion towhen all the years fill in.Originally posted 9/29/09.





	Songs to Sing Your Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It all belongs to J.K. Rowling and sundry people who are not me. This is just for fun and not profit.
> 
> Summary from a bit of wisdom shared by my dear Nicole with her beautiful daughter, Eva, on the occasion of Eva's 100th day in the world.

It's okay to fall in love with beautiful, damaged boys, you tell your daughter.

"It may be difficult," you say, touching her tender forehead with your thumb, "and at times it will break your heart, but all the best love affairs do. That's a secret that no one will ever tell you."

You tell her that life is full of sadness and sometimes you cry. Rocking her gently, soothing the frown puckering her forehead, you tell her that crying is not a bad thing. Girls in love do it frequently. But holding him in the quiet between storms, on the lawn or beneath trees is better than you could ever imagine. Worth more than a few salted tears.

Loving Harry was more than you expected when you fell in love with him, you would like to say, for his eyes only. But you will not lie to her, at least not this kind of lie, not yet, and the truth is that Harry was an obsession before he was anything else. A story you told when people sneered at your frayed hems. How you had met him first, before he ever got to Hogwarts, on Platform 9 3/4. Infatuation that turned to hero worship, a thing for celebrities you and Ron inherited from Mum. Although Ron would argue that his devotion to Viktor Krum is like the difference between action figures and dolls.

"Which is all apples and oranges," you say, "and no difference at all."

Ron would frown at that. You never remind him that Harry was his first love, too.

But it isn't as if things remain as they begin and if at first you loved Harry for his eyes or his name, he may have only loved you for the color of your hair. The familiar, adoring red that marks you as Molly's daughter and Ron's sister, substitutes for the family he wishes he always had.

You loved him for his name and his scars, then for his eyes and because he saved you. You loved him because he loved Ron and Molly, and because he was kind to Luna. You were the same. Twins, heirs of Slytherin studied for cracks along invisible seams. Everyone watched you and waited for you to shout or cry or go mad. Except Harry who destroyed Riddle's diary and held your hand. Harry who found you when you were as lost as you'd ever been.

You think that maybe they would have forgiven you their terror if there were a tic or a scar, something left behind. A hero's mark to match you to Harry. Two peas in a pod, survivors. A lightening bolt to say that you were healed, purged and exorcised; just Ginny Weasley behind your eyes. Then the world was ending and Dumbledore died and maybe *this* was all the life you would ever get. So you got on with the business of it because Molly had never taught you how to do anything else.

"She's beautiful," he says from the door, eyes bright and staring from behind his glasses.

There is a tenseness around his mouth and across his shoulders that never goes away. George says it’s Fred’s ghost hanging on Harry’s shirttails. Harry always laughs at that, his mouth a wide, echoing crater.

"So are you. So she comes by it naturally.” You are gentle when you speak, to hide the regret. It’s not difficult. You have six brothers. You’ve learned to hide many things.

Harry flushes slightly, shrugs off the compliment, uncomfortable after all of the sacrifices that leave him among the last still standing. It is a place that he never really thought to see.

"What shall we call her?" he asks, still lurking hesitantly in the doorway.

You look down, smooth your hand over the baby’s downy head and say, “Lily.” When you look up there are no shadows in his eyes and for a moment you bridge the distance easily, your heart to his. A broad smile cracks his face as you say, “Luna, I think, for the middle name.” You want there to be something of you there, too, because Lily will come to love him best. Daddies and daughters, it's not something you can fight.

"Come hold her," you say. "My arms are getting tired." And you hope he doesn't hear the lie; you could cross mountains with Lily in your arms. But you know that he's too besotted to worry about you anymore. That in this moment, for right now, he has found peace. And when he stops beside the bed, slides his arms under yours to take her weight you almost don't let go. As if you could hold on to him and what you were to each other if you hold on to her.

The tightness in his shoulders eases and Harry has eyes only for his daughter. He hums something beneath his breath, something for just the two of them as he rocks her and walks towards the window on the other side of the room.

Once he only unwound for you, the two of you entwined in the grass beside the lake, kissing and dreaming the future. There are too many nightmares between you now and tense is his default. You are sorry for that. Sorry that you cannot fight dragons for him. Sorry that you cannot save him. You are even sorrier that you cannot stay.

You've realized that one day you will have to get on with the business of breaking up. You’ve remained this long only because you’ve loved him with the weight of the world on his shoulders and for the heartbreak in his eyes. Molly taught you how to hold on, but she also taught you how to let go. You can do it just as well as anyone else. Harry is tired of the tragedy, you know, and in this story he won’t break your heart by leaving first. He is too damaged for that kind of ending.

"I have to go," he says like reading your mind and you are startled. Raise your hand to stop him, to say that you are not quite ready to let go of this particular dream although the clock is ticking and the days are numbered. But then you realize that Ron is hovering just outside the doorway, Hermione beside him, one hand on his arm to hold him back.

"Oh," you say and accept the soft armful of your daughter against your heart.

"I'll try to come by later. Hermione will stay for awhile. Until your mum gets back."

He leans over to kiss your cheek and you say, "Harry." He smiles at you and you smile back.

"Be careful," you say instead of goodbye and he kisses you again. Leans in closer to kiss the baby on the forehead and exchanges places with Hermione at Ron's side. It is the one place, you think, that he will always be.

When he is gone and Hermione has abandoned her post in search of coffee and to give you a moment's privacy, you tell Lily that it is okay to be a hero.

Pressing a kiss to her rosebud mouth you say, "It's okay to try and save the world."

She ignores you, dreaming colors and sounds, whatever it is that babies dream. "But be careful," you say. "Be careful of loving a boy who doesn't love you back."

The best love affairs are destined to fracture the heart and the ones that follow, the ones that last, may be stronger for the breaking. You cuddle your daughter close, inhale the improbably sweet baby scent of her and admit that loving Harry has been worth many things.

**Author's Note:**

> Fandom Trail: seraphcelene @ [Dreamwidth](https://seraphcelene.dreamwidth.org) and [Tumblr](https://seraphcelene.tumblr.com). x-posted at LJ which I do not check.


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